Page 50 of Bride of Choice

Veck rumbled something in Lo denaii that several other replied with agreeing sounding grunts to. “Jo no’ say Krampus on hunt? Not want scare fema- ah, others,” he quickly corrected.

They didn’t want to freak out their females, who were already kinda pretty isolated as it was.

“As long as you can all promise me everyone will be kept safe, you have my word I won’t be sayin’ jack,” I swore.

“Why care she say jack?” Berkr let out an exasperated noise. “What jack? Who jack?”

Veck, smothering a laugh, his icy white-blue eyes twinkling as we shared on the inside joke, rumbled something at Berkr in his language that had the village enforcer turning a funny color.

“Berkr need get out more, as Meanie says,” Tarnk teased the older male.

“Berkr no need gets out. Tarnk gets out!” he burst out, narrowing his eyes on the group gathered and smothering their own smirks. He was the only singleton in the bunch. “All gets out!” he snapped, offering me a short dirty look before he stormed from the room.

“Are you sure you want Pepé hall-monitoring for y’all?” I called out loudly, hoping he heard. “He’s kind of a big ol’ baby.”

“Bad Jo baby!” he bellowed from deeper in the house. “Bigged baby!”

“See! Whoa, baby!” I shot back, laughing at my own ridiculousness as he snarled, the sound long and loud enough to rattle windows, then slammed out of the house. Where was my sense of self-preservation? It was like it had gotten tossed out the window after one chug of funky soup broth.

Dorothy, I noted, like Red’s and Cottontail’s mates, stared at me as if I’d lost my ever loving mind to taunt the male to those depths of foolishness, while Mina’s and Dorothy’s mates quietly chuckled at the shit I’d just stirred.

Bum-bum couldn’t be bothered to join this gathering, I noted. Berkr, Veck, and Bum-bum were the village big guns, the unofficial leaders. Why this bothered me, that he couldn’t be bothered, was beyond my means of contemplating, because I could acknowledge just how stupid my hurt widdle feelings over it were, just how absurd I was being. Why would I want to see him again, and so soon? That whole thing with him was bananas. Plumb bananas.

Yet… I was still thinking about it. Argh.

My brain must’ve been put in backwards. Even now, absent of dumb human men prone to idiocy to pant after, I’ve seamlessly switched to crazy Yeti men that don’t know their heads from their asses, some with weird commitment issues, others with, well, I don’t even know what, to be completely honest. I’m some kind of deranged, dick magnet— and not the fun kind.

Holding a finger up as Village Security filed out, I looked to Dorothy. “That still doesn’t decide where I’m going to be staying in the meantime.”

“Berkr’s?” Someone laughingly suggested from the other room.

“Like fuck!” I squawked, to Berkr’s hell no sounding shout in Lo denaii, Dorothy’s mates cracking up, and Dorothy abruptly admonishing, “Language!”

Unsure if she was talking to just me, or me and Berkr, maybe everyone in general if she recognized the Lo denaii cursing, it was all so ridiculous I burst out laughing.

It was a weird way to start my day but no less entertaining.

Chapter 9

Around late-late afternoon, nearly time for dinner as something delicious smelling bubbled away on the stove and the aroma of freshly baked rolls permeated the room, Dorothy and I sat at her table brainstorming plausible ideas as to where to temporarily relocate me without drawing any undue attention or too many questions. The sharp, insistent knock that came rat-a-tatting at her door had me craning my neck to see, praying whoever it was they weren’t there for me, eager to give me the third degree, and or about to make an ass of themselves over it.

“Rothy?” Gopher called out.

Dorothy glanced to me curiously when I stiffened in my seat but feigned interest in my tea. The puzzled look on her face turned into a frown at my reaction.

“Is that- Isn’t that Gofur? Sounds like him. You’re good friends, aren’t you? Two peas in a pod, to hear Dougie tell it,” she murmured absently as she stood and went to the door.

She barely had it open and Goph began talking a mile a minute. It took him two minutes of rambling to recall he was speaking in his native tongue, then he slipped into what sounded like French, I’d swear. Another moment and he shook his head and stopped himself, then finally switched to English. “Jo,” was the only word that didn’t mesh into all the others in his long, never ending, no periods in sight, stream of mashed together, one big long word mushed up sounding gibberish.

Dorothy, standing there, lips parted, mouth slightly agape at his speed talking, glanced from his anxious form and that never ending prattling, to me.

“Let him in, please?” I croaked out softly. Nerves hit me, worried about how this might all go down. I had that feeling of being on unsteady ground. I hated feeling that way with him. He’d been my security blanket for so long I was barely functioning without that hand up he’d eagerly offered me for so long. It was akin to getting my damn arm chopped off, it felt like.

Gopher shot in the second she had the door open all the way.

“Bia and Noyel haven’t stopped by today if you’re looking for them,” she started to say, referring to his two best chums outside of me and Booger, but it wasn’t necessary.

The second Gopher popped in, inhaling deeply as he went, his eyes had just started to close but then shot open at the breathless noise I made.

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